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India-based systems integrator Tata Consultancy Services has won what is likely to be a £600m contract for the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority (Pada) National Employment Savings Trust bid (NEST).The 10-year contract, which will see TCS deliver the IT system for the UK’s national pensions scheme, will be signed later this month. NEST is the UK government’s low-cost pension scheme previously known as personal accounts. The scheme is due to come into effect in 2012.
The country’s Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, the administering authority for the scheme, said on Tuesday that the contract, which can possibly be extended for another five years, would be signed later this month.
This is the largest public sector contract that any Indian IT firm has won in the UK and is expected to further open up opportunities in the £10 billion public sector technology outsourcing market in that country currently dominated by European IT firms.
“It is certainly a major win for TCS, and a sure sign that the appetite for global delivery is changing in the UK public sector,” said John O’Brien, analyst at Ovum, a UK-based technology researcher that tracks local IT services. Other Indian vendors that already have significant presence in the UK, such as HCL Technologies Ltd, Infosys Technologies Ltd and Wipro Ltd, would be in a strong position to benefit from the profile that this win will generate, he added.
Other large UK public sector deals TCS has won in the recent past include a $150 million (Rs690 crore today) contract in November from local government authority Cardiff Council and a £55-million deal with UK’s Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, which was signed in April.
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